Smart cities are often presented through sensors and cameras. In an interview with Digitalk, Sofia's deputy mayor for digitalization and information systems, Ivan Goychev, puts the emphasis elsewhere: on open data. The reason is simple. When a municipality publishes data in a machine-readable format, businesses and citizens can build services the administration would never develop on its own.
Examples from around the world
- London: Transport for London's open data powers apps such as Citymapper. The time saved by commuters is estimated at more than GBP 130 million a year.
- New York: the NYC OpenData portal is used to predict fire risk in buildings and to optimize waste collection routes.
- Singapore: Virtual Singapore is a digital twin of the city used to simulate urban planning, the spread of disease and energy efficiency.
What Sofia is doing
- The Urban Mobility Center has opened up public transport data: vehicle positions, travel times and waiting times at stops.
- The municipality has published the cadastral map in GeoJSON format, along with the list of addresses, which Google, Waze, Garmin, TomTom and Here can use.
- Sofia shares data on temporary roadworks with Waze and receives congestion reports in return, which are used to adjust traffic lights.
- There are 22 municipal air quality sensors, sensors run by the national agency and around 700 citizen sensors through AirBG.
- The roofs of public buildings are being mapped for solar potential, and every waste container is being mapped with GPS.
- Together with the GATE institute, the city is working on a digital twin based on the urbandata.sofia.bg portal, while the "Reshava Sofia" platform is used for participatory budgeting and public consultations.
Why this matters for business
Open data is raw material for products: transport apps, delivery services, property platforms, local directories. For local businesses there is a simpler effect too: accurate addresses and maps in navigation systems help customers find you.
A practical tip for local SEO
As municipalities improve their data, it pays for your data to be consistent as well: the same name, address and phone number on your website, in your Google Business Profile and in directories, plus structured data for your organization. There is more on this on our SEO page, including local SEO for Sofia.
Topic source: Digitalk: Why open data matters for smart city management (in Bulgarian). This article is an independent analysis by Penkov Studio.
